


Just This

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 18:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12917361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: The first moonlit dance between friends-turned-something more.





	Just This

**Author's Note:**

> a request from @werewolfgirlize on tumblr  
> Song: "Just a Kiss" by Lady Antebellum

 Mal never had a penchant for reading signs.

  
Signs tried to warn her, and Mal tended to live for danger. Signs tried to guide her, and Mal made her own path. But most especially, signs tried to tell her what to do, and  _no one_  told Mal what to do. So she never really heeded signs, never developed the talent for it.  
  
When Evie’s warm gaze started lingering on her more and more, touches became softer, and Mal’s heart thudded in her chest everytime Evie drew near, the last thing she ever would’ve expected was that she and her best friend were growing into something more than friendship. The signs were all there, Mal just didn’t pay attention.  _These_ signs were warning her of the giant brick wall on the horizon she was speeding right towards, and with her lack of foresight, she crashed right into it. So when Evie approached her one day with a beautifully shy smile and asked “…Will you go to the Fall Formal with me?” there was nothing else to be said but “Yes”.

Eyes were on them when they arrived together, eyes of those who, like Mal, did not read the warning signs and couldn’t have seen that brick wall coming.  
  
“…If you want to leave at all, all you have to do is say so,” Evie gently told her, leaning over to whisper.  
  
“I don’t.”  
  
“But later on in the night, if you—”  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
There was no shortage of castle ballrooms in Auradon, and the nearest one to the school made the perfect place for a Fall Formal. Mal didn’t think it was possible to feel like such a stranger around her own best friend, but everything was just so new. The carriage ride to the castle and that heartbeat of hers thudding from how close Evie sat, her eyes on Evie’s unearthly beauty in her sapphire ballgown studded with glittering white gems, and Evie carefully, oh so carefully lacing their fingers together whenever the courage struck her. When the music began, Mal thought that this was something,  _something_ slightly more in her comfort zone. After all, Ben’s coronation had come and gone; Mal had danced with Evie before.  
  
But she’d never  _danced_ with Evie before.  
  
With Evie’s arm around her waist, their hands twined together, their bodies close and the music like a breeze around them.  
  
Mal’s heart going crazy with every beat, both of itself and of the music.  
  
She kept true to her word the whole evening, when later on in the night, as the dance was winding down, Mal was still at Evie’s side as they left the ballroom behind to find solitude for themselves out on the balcony. There was only the slightest of autumn chills in the air as they rested on the stone railing of the balcony and looked out into the night, a full, glowing moon beaming above them.  
  
“Looks like the dance is almost over,” Evie said, glancing over her shoulder through the lattice glass doors leading back inside.  
  
“It was a nice night,” Mal noted.  
  
“You had fun?” Evie looked to her with a little smile.  
  
“Of course I did. You and me? Never a dull moment. Thank you for…well, for…”  
  
“…For asking you to be my date?”  
  
“…Yeah. For that.”  
  
Evie saw Mal blushing red in the moonlight, and laughed quietly to herself.  
  
The start of the last song floated out to them from the crack in the door, slow and sweet, the chords alone telling them it was the perfect song to end the night on.  
  
“May I have the last dance?” Evie asked, turning to face Mal and holding out her hand.  
  
“You may,” Mal gave a teasing and playful curtsy, taking Evie’s hand and moving with her to the center of the balcony.  
  
_“Lying here with you so close to me, it’s hard to fight these feelings when it feels so hard to breathe.”_  
  
Slow and sweet. The music slightly muffled to them, but not hindering them in the slightest. Evie held Mal close, even closer now than they’d been on the dancefloor.  
  
_“Caught up in this moment…”_  
  
Mal worried for a minute that Evie might actually be able to feel how her heart raced.  
  
_“Caught up in your smile.”_  
  
They weren’t so much dancing as they were simply swaying back and forth in time to the music, arms around each other and eyes shining brightly.  
  
_“I’ve never opened up to anyone.”  
  
“So hard to hold back when I’m holding you…in my arms.”_  
  
Lyrics striking a chord with Mal, deep and true. Just a matter of weeks ago, Evie was a friend. A best friend, yes, but even still the bounds of their relationship were clear. Never did she imagine she’d ever be holding Evie like this, dancing with her in Auradon moonlight.  
  
_“We don’t need to rush this, let’s just take it slow.”_  
  
Slow and sweet.  
  
_“Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight, just a touch of the fire burning so bright.”_  
  
The fire burning bright between them like a firefly in the evening’s darkness, a fire of the wonder of new possibilities, change, new paths.  
  
Paths that the signs were attempting to lead Mal down. Signs like the warm chocolate of Evie’s eyes tracing the shape of her face, studying her features like she hadn’t already known them so well.  
  
_“I don’t want to mess this thing up, I don’t want to push too far.”_  
  
This thing building around them with every sway left and right, stoking the fire.  
  
_“Just a shot in the dark that you just might be the one I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”  
  
“So baby I’m alright…with just a kiss goodnight.”  
_  
“…Evie?” Mal’s whispered voice spoke up after a lull in the lyrics.  
  
“Yes?”   
  
Mal took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them back up.  
  
Read the signs Mal, for once in your life. You’re not quite there yet.  
  
“I’m glad I was your date tonight,” she said.  
  
The word “magic” was suddenly in her head the instant Evie smiled at her.  
  
“I’m glad too.”  
  
_“I know that if we give this a little time, it’ll only bring us closer to the love we wanna find.”  
_  
Indulging on a whim, Evie lifted her hand and slowly spun Mal around, eliciting an almost-girlish giggle from her before they fell back into step.  
_  
“It’s never felt so real.”  
  
“No it’s never felt so right.”_  
  
That, Mal thought, was at least one part of the song that was wrong.  
  
Everything with Evie had always felt right.  
_  
“Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight, just a touch of the fire burning so bright.”  
  
“I don’t want to mess this thing up, I don’t want to push too far.”_  
  
A sudden seize of panic like ice in Mal’s chest, snuffing out the fire for the briefest of moments. What if this thing  _did_ get messed up? This new, exciting, yet terrifying slippery slope they were heading down? If something went wrong, then at the end of the day Mal wouldn’t have Evie as a friend  _or_ something more. The something more, Mal could find the will to survive without. But there was no way on earth or above she could live without Evie’s friendship.  
  
_“Just a shot in the dark that you just might be the one I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”  
  
“So baby I’m alright…with just a kiss goodnight.”_  
  
Mal felt the practically imperceptible tug as Evie drew her in even closer, the both of them pressed tight on their own private dancefloor. Among the music they could hear the sounds of shuffling back inside, couples and individuals alike cutting out early to head back to Auradon Prep.  
  
_“No I don’t want to say goodnight.”_  
  
“…Almost time to go,” Mal said, practically breaking the spell.  
  
_“I know it’s time to leave, but you’ll be in my dreams.”  
_  
“Tonight was amazing,” Evie sighed wistfully as she danced with Mal.  
  
_“Tonight…”_  
  
“It was. There’s only one thing missing,” Mal quietly told her.  
  
_“Tonight…”_  
  
“What’s missing?” Evie frowned.  
  
_“Tonight…”  
_  
For the first time in her life, Mal had read the signs. The signs of Evie’s gentle touches dancing across her the way they danced across the balcony, how they drew closer and closer as the beat played on, and the way Mal’s head and her heart had finally put aside their differences and found themselves on the same page for the sake of the evening.  
  
“Just…” Mal whispered. “…Just this.”  
  
_“Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight, just a touch of the fire burning so bright.”_  
  
Soft, and  _so_ warm, with their easy dancing coming to a complete stop and Mal’s fingers coming to rest on Evie’s cheek. Eyes closed against the moonlight, hearts open to every little fluttering feeling as they kissed under the stars.  
  
_“No I don’t want to mess this thing up, I don’t want to push too far.”  
_  
There it was, the icy fear Mal held of messing this thing up melting away with the knowledge that this never  _could_  be messed up. This was Mal and Evie, the surest thing there ever was. They beamed bright like the moon above, and like the moon above, what they had between them would always be there.  
_  
“Just a shot in the dark that you just might be the one I’ve been waiting for my whole life.”_  
  
Evie’s head came to rest against Mal’s, a breathless laugh on her tingling lips and a breathtaking smile on her beautiful face.  
  
_“So baby I’m alright…”_  
  
“…Did I say tonight was amazing?” she asked.  
  
Mal nodded, letting her nose brush softly against Evie’s as a giddy smile came to her face as well.  
  
_“…Oh, let’s do this right.”_  
  
“Make that  _perfect_ ,” Evie corrected herself.  
  
_“With just a kiss goodnight…”_  
  
The moon suddenly paling in comparison to the light in Mal and Evie’s hearts.  
  
_“With a kiss goodnight…”_  
  
A hug shared between them and soft laughs following, the friendship rooted firmly underneath shining through, the way it always had and always would no matter what roads they went down or which paths they followed.  
  
_“Kiss goodnight…”_  
  
And many, many,  _many_  more to come.


End file.
